


Forever Yours

by Death2Toby



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Inspired by Music, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 19:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14220651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Death2Toby/pseuds/Death2Toby
Summary: In which Steve tries to figure out what the fuck he is supposed to do without Bucky.





	Forever Yours

The whiskey burns its way down Steve’s throat, settling in his stomach for a moment. The sensation is fleeting, his thoughts remaining painfully crystal clear. He’d expected nothing less. Dr. Erskine had told him he wouldn’t be able to get drunk. Steve had thought it was funny at the time, the way he’d presented the information as though it may be a deal breaker. 

Of course the old Steve never felt the need to drown his sorrows. The old Steve saw a problem and came up with a solution. The old Steve watched his mother, the only person he had besides Bucky, succumb to TB and said “I can get by on my own.” And he meant it. It hurt, sure, but it didn’t stop him. Giving up was not an option. You keep moving forward and that’s that. 

Ironic isn’t it, that he seemed weaker now than he ever was back then, when his body betrayed him in every possible way. But then, he supposed, everything had to balance out somehow. The serum had just tipped the scale the other way. 

And of course it doesn’t really matter now. Bucky is dead. And, Steve thinks bitterly, he would have died whether Steve had taken the serum or not. It was some cruel and inescapable fate. Steve was always meant to lose everything. He almost wished he’d figured that out sooner. Maybe he wouldn’t have tried so hard. He throws back another shot. 

He lets his mind wander, as if he really has a choice, to his life before war. He and Bucky barely scraping by, watering down the milk, lighting candles when the power was shut off, huddling together under a threadbare blanket in the dead of winter. He wouldn’t trade any of it. 

Steve recalls feeling so lucky, so grateful for every minute he had with Bucky, and that Bucky loved him so much too. Every night that he slept with Bucky’s arm around him felt like a blessing, made everything worth it. 

Sundays had been their day together. They would sleep in, cuddled close, the stresses of life far away from them. Steve would slip out from Bucky’s grasp and set to making breakfast, doing the best with what he had. If Bucky ever noticed Steve leaving the bed, he didn’t say. He just waited for Steve to come and get him, acting surprised every time, hugging Steve and kissing him and looking at him with eyes full of thankfulness and adoration. And Steve would feel lucky again, that he could make the man he loved understand just how much he loved him, and be loved equally as much in return. 

They would pretend that way, that they had a life together, a real one like married folks had. It was as close to the real thing as they’d ever get, but it was enough because it had to be. There had been one night, though, that Bucky had broken down completely, folding into Steve as though Steve wasn’t half his size, fists clenched tightly in the fabric of his shirt to pull him close and keep him there. 

“We can’t do this forever, Steve,” he’d sobbed. “This thing’ll run it’s course eventually, we’ll get tired of pretending. We’ll want what everyone else has.”

“And whats’s that, Buck?” 

“A life. A real life. A fucking house in the suburbs with kids and a dog and white picket fence.” 

“Really? Because all I want, all I’ve ever wanted, is you.” Bucky had looked up at Steve then, with a look Steve had never seen and hoped he never would again. A look that said he knew he was fighting a losing battle, a look that said this thing was going to go up in flames sooner or later and that Bucky was at the mercy of it. “You are real to me. What we have is real. The way I love you is real.” 

A broken sound had escaped Bucky and he’d just cried for what seemed like hours. They’d never talked about it again. 

He wanted to wish that Bucky had never went to war, but the truth was that he wouldn’t be the man Steve loved if he hadn’t. “I swear I’m gonna come back to you, Steve,” Bucky had murmured, the two of them hiding under the covers in their drafty apartment. Steve only smiled in return, knowing that promise wasn’t Bucky’s to keep. 

Bucky wanted to do what was right, just as Steve always had. They both stuck up for those who couldn’t stick up for themselves, never mind that the people Steve usually stuck up for were a damn sight stronger than he had been. 

The sentiment seems superfluous now. Where had this sense of justice gotten them? Steve almost feels like laughing at the meaninglessness of it all. And maybe he would if he could stop picturing Bucky pitching to his death, taking with him the better man that Steve could have been. 

A sob tears through him then, as he wishes for a fraction of a second that he had never been in love at all, just to spare himself this pain. But he can’t make himself want that, not really. To have loved Bucky Barnes, however far too briefly, still feels like a blessing.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song Forever Yours by Grayscale.


End file.
